Wow, have we come a long way in demand generation over the last 7 years! There are more vendors in the market and more users in the market from companies of all sizes. Yet, while we are seeing all this hoopla around how easy all of the automation systems are to implement and use and (and many of them are), it’s still not about the technology. The key elements of people, skills, org structure, compensation, role, and ultimately revenue impact should be more of the focus. Yet, for many reasons, companies can find transitioning [...]
Let’s face it – it’s hard to keep up with where prospects go to get information about our solutions these days!
Before the internet (yes, we actually worked without one), a prospect interested in buying a solution would call-in a group of vendors to provide a “capabilities presentation.” As a VP of Sales, I can tell you this required a lot of work . We would call anyone we knew who might know something about the client to see what we could find out in advance to help us prepare. Presentation day came [...]
Our topic is “Lead Management” and how to do it successfully. This is often a highly charged area as for the first time, marketing is requiring accountability from sales and vice versa – I call it “The Elephant on the Conference Room Table.”
It’s the Monday morning senior management team meeting. It starts with the VP of Sales giving an update on the sales pipeline and revenue and then it’s your turn, Mr/s Marketer to give an update on the lead funnel and the impact you are making on revenue. Your [...]
This blog is inspired by reflection on what has changed in selling – the answer is EVERYTHING. My background includes being a VP of Sales for many years, working for one of the world’s most renowned sales training companies and now working in the lead generation space. This mix has given me a forward thinking perspective on what is Web 2.0 Selling and here it is.
First, the Buying Process. By now, you’ve heard everybody and their brother talk about this yet FEW companies have a documented Buying Process – how [...]
This week I was working with a new client and we were conducting the lead management kick-off meeting. This client had just purchased a lead management system and was preparing to soar into the world of Web 2.0 marketing. In attendance were the marketing staff and a significant number of sales people. The ratio of sales to marketing in this meeting was 3:1.
The purpose of the kick-off was to:
Begin building a collaborative lead management relationship between sales and marketing
Begin building a jointly constructed lead management process
Introduce the team to [...]
